What makes law legal?
- Thread starter El Barto
- Start date
If a government passed a law to which 95% of the population disagreed with, the law would pretty much be meaningless.
What makes law and taxes legal in my opinion is the trust we have in the government. While we do live in a period of deep cynicism, our trust has not completely eroded. Murderers and rapists are still arrested when it's possible and that is to the benefit of all. When something goes wrong, we call the police because we have at least some form of trust towards it.
So laws and taxes are legal so long as they are accepted by the population at large.
What makes law and taxes legal in my opinion is the trust we have in the government. While we do live in a period of deep cynicism, our trust has not completely eroded. Murderers and rapists are still arrested when it's possible and that is to the benefit of all. When something goes wrong, we call the police because we have at least some form of trust towards it.
So laws and taxes are legal so long as they are accepted by the population at large.
S_lone you are getting where i am going with this.
I have the gst as an example. It wasn't on an election platform but it was implimented with much dissaproval, would that be considered illegal?
JLM is correct.
What makes law "legal" is the enforceability of it. If the law is not enforced then it isn't really a law. If a body makes "laws" but has no way of enforcing them, then they aren't really laws.
Agreement by the majority is meaningless. During feudal times, it wouldn't matter how many people disagreed with the law, so long as they did not rebel, or if they did, that your army could quash the opposition. The easiest way to achieve this state of affairs is to have 5% of the population possess such superior weaponry or to have the 95% very malnourished.
Might is right.
The GST laws wouldn't be illegal because the government in power implemented it and controls the mechanisms to see that it is enforced. Now, the population, so disgusted, could revolt thus making it illegal: by changing the government through force.
What makes law "legal" is the enforceability of it. If the law is not enforced then it isn't really a law. If a body makes "laws" but has no way of enforcing them, then they aren't really laws.
Agreement by the majority is meaningless. During feudal times, it wouldn't matter how many people disagreed with the law, so long as they did not rebel, or if they did, that your army could quash the opposition. The easiest way to achieve this state of affairs is to have 5% of the population possess such superior weaponry or to have the 95% very malnourished.
Might is right.
The GST laws wouldn't be illegal because the government in power implemented it and controls the mechanisms to see that it is enforced. Now, the population, so disgusted, could revolt thus making it illegal: by changing the government through force.
no JLM is not correct. The question was aimed at creating law and having it 'legal'. JLM point of view was enforcing the law, not the question asked.
Now you bring up force , but does force make anything legal?
On another thread I asked what makes Obama qualified to be President.
At least one yahoo - with no valid argument - said that the fact he was elected qualifies him to the be President.
Kind of like what makes the law legal? The fact that it IS the law!
At least one yahoo - with no valid argument - said that the fact he was elected qualifies him to the be President.
Kind of like what makes the law legal? The fact that it IS the law!
All law resides within a framework. It's called constitutional law. It governs what type of laws may be made, and how they are enforced.
Law is just a system of rules. For the rules to be "legal" they must satisfy the framework which governs them, which is constitutional law. So there are rules for making rules. The ultimate in legality is the justices who interpret the law, and that is a simple majority of opinions.
Law is just a system of rules. For the rules to be "legal" they must satisfy the framework which governs them, which is constitutional law. So there are rules for making rules. The ultimate in legality is the justices who interpret the law, and that is a simple majority of opinions.
I think you are wrong here, Barto. GST was explicitly mentioned in Mulroney’s platform when he won the second majority. It is just that people didn’t pay any attention to it, that election was mostly about free trade. Since Québec strongly supports free trade, Quebecois voted PC in large numbers and Mulroney got his second majority.
Once he came to power, he proceeded to implement the GST, as he had promised in his election platform. He can hardly be blamed for that.
Sounds like a very valid argument to me, YJ. The fact that he was elected means that he was qualified, in the opinion of American people. And that is what matters.
Just to use your GST example Bart, if we had constitutional law that stated that any increase in taxes must be met by a 2/3 vote in Parliament, and Mulroney tried to slip the GST through in the budget, and lets say the vote fell along party lines, there would not have been enough majority votes to carry the tax increase, even though the budget would have passed.
I think California actually has a law like this. It's nearly impossible to raise revenues by increasing tax rates because of this. Which makes it hard for California to fix the mess they are in. Sometimes, you have to tighten the purse strings, and take a second job to pay all the bills. California's law makes it hard to get the second job in that analogy.
I think California actually has a law like this. It's nearly impossible to raise revenues by increasing tax rates because of this. Which makes it hard for California to fix the mess they are in. Sometimes, you have to tighten the purse strings, and take a second job to pay all the bills. California's law makes it hard to get the second job in that analogy.
About the gst . It came out of nowhere. No one was for it . The party acted out on it's own behalf with out the peoples consent, so in essence , is it legal.
Where i am getting at is government is legal with the peoples approval, this was a case that it had not .
WE accept that junior was legally qualified to be prez. Not that he was any good at it or even elected. Had the CIA not rigged the voting he would have lost by a wide margin.
My understanding is that there are only two kinds of law: maritime law (commerce) and common law. I think taxes fall under maritime law.
"Had the CIA not rigged the voting he would have lost by a wide margin."
Had ACORN not rigged the voting, had Black Panthers not stood by clubs and guns at polling stations, had unions not intimidated their members, had America not felt guilty and tried to make amends for slavery that ended 150+ years ago, had Americans used their brains and see that this Communist is Hell bent to destroy their country, Obama would have lost by a wide margin.
So, being elected qualified the half-breed (as long as you can refer to President Bush as junior I can refer to Obama as half-breed) to be President. Not that he is any good at it.
Had ACORN not rigged the voting, had Black Panthers not stood by clubs and guns at polling stations, had unions not intimidated their members, had America not felt guilty and tried to make amends for slavery that ended 150+ years ago, had Americans used their brains and see that this Communist is Hell bent to destroy their country, Obama would have lost by a wide margin.
So, being elected qualified the half-breed (as long as you can refer to President Bush as junior I can refer to Obama as half-breed) to be President. Not that he is any good at it.
And when did you read me say that Bush was unqualified to be the president? I never said any such thing. Sure Bush was qualified, people elected him. Nevertheless, he was also a bloodthirsty, shoot from the hip moron.
